Darien pulls away from Trinity Catholic in lopsided win

Emery Filmer

Published 11:36 pm, Saturday, January 19, 2013

STAMFORD -- For one period at least on Saturday, the Trinity Catholic High School boys hockey team showed it could stay with powerful Darien, ranked fourth in the latest state poll. The problem for the Crusaders, however, was that the break between periods at the Darien Ice Rink was just 15 minutes.

"I think we might have exerted too much energy in the first period," Trinity coach Ken Smith said after Darien scored eight goals in the final two periods en route to a 9-1 FCIAC victory. "We just couldn't maintain that level of energy."

Trinity's trapping strategy certainly frustrated Darien during the opening 15 minutes. But the Blue Wave managed to break free in the second period and the game was never the same.

"Those guys did a wonderful job against us in the first period, give their coaches a lot of credit," Darien coach Chris Gerwig said. "They set up a nice trap and it really stifled us."

The Crusaders (2-6-1, 2-1-1 FCIAC) couldn't keep it up, though. Darien's Jack Pardue scored 5:28 into the second period and the Blue Wave (8-1-1, 4-0) were off and running. Within 1:39, Tommy Watters and Brendan Cassidy also scored and it was 4-0. This so-called battle for first place in the FCIAC East was no longer in doubt.

"They're the fourth-ranked team in the state for a reason," Smith said. "They can throw three or four strong lines out there. But we frustrated them for a while. In the second period we got away from our game plan and they took advantage of it immediately."

While the teams came into Saturday with similar FCIAC records, the truth is the gap was wide. Darien was 4-1-1 against top non-league competition, including wins over perennial powers Hamden, West Haven and Notre Dame of Fairfield. Trinity was 0-5 in non-league contests.

"We weren't really treating it (as a showdown for first place)," Smith said.

Darien, which has won five in a row by a combined score of 31-5, did a good job of limiting scoring chances for Trinity's top line of Steve Lambrinakos, DJ Davis and Sean Dolan. Dolan did manage to get the Crusaders on the board with a power play goal with 5:09 remaining in the second period making it 4-1.

But another flurry of goals -- this time three in 1:19 late in the second period -- broke it open. Owen Koorbusch (PPG), Jack Knowlton and Jack Hathaway, who scored Darien's first goal, made it 7-1.

"Our depth wore them down," Gerwig said. "In the second period we opened up the ice, got a lot of movement and opened up lanes. Six goals in one period is nice; we haven't done that in a long time."